That time I wanted to die…

Hey, remember that time I tried to kill myself? No?! Oh yeah, that’s right, it isn’t something people talk about. Did you know that wasn’t the first time I had thought about killing myself? Here’s my story…I hope it helps someone else find peace within the way that I did.

I have been in and out of therapy since I was 14. Clinically depressed is that diagnosis I was given by a psychologist at Georgia Regional Hospital. It was 2007 and I had just had one of the worse years in my life. A handful of mixed painkillers is what I decided to take to end it all. I figured I would just fall asleep and not wake up. Seemed legit seeing as how one Vicodin was enough to cause me to sleep all day.

So that didn’t work out so well. I had a terrible stomachache and was feeling very groggy. I called a friend of mine and told her what I had done. Not sure why I chose them to help me, but they were my angels that day. They were at my house in less than an hour. We went straight to the ER to make sure I didn’t need my stomach pumped.

Kennesaw Hospital is not a place I suggest anyone go to for anything like this. They are extremely unsympathetic and talk to you like you are the scum of the Earth. Luckily they didn’t have to pump my stomach because I didn’t take enough. The sickness just wore off hours later.

Here is where things got interesting. Did you know that in the state of Georgia that if you try and commit suicide that they automatically send you to a psych ward for minimum three days, even if you have responsible people to look after you? They hauled my ass to Georgia Regional Hospital because I either didn’t have good enough insurance or I had none at all, nonetheless, this is where they sent me.

When I tell you that this place is no joke.  I mean it’s not joke. There are mentally ill people in here for real, for real. I wanted to stay in my room the whole time and not talk. They said the longer I lay in my room silent then the longer they would keep me there. So basically I was forced to come out of my room and sit in the main area with the other patients.

Do you know how hard it is to talk to someone who is delusional? At times I felt like I was going to go mad too. Especially when I tried to talk to the workers. They talked to me like I was delusional and out of my mind. I wasn’t out of my mind. I was depressed. I was inside my mind.

Did I also mention that I went in on a Friday and so I wouldn’t see the psychologist until Monday? Technically four days in this place is how long they kept me. I knew the psychologist would be able to see that I wasn’t out of my mind, and that I wasn’t a threat.

Being there was a wake up call for me. I don’t EVER want to go back to a place like that. It was dirty, the staff was unfriendly, the food sucked, and on and on. I can imagine that this is what being in jail feels like. I may be wrong, so don’t go crazy in my comments about not knowing what jail is like and to not compare the two, and blah, blah…lol All I am saying is that is sucked. I wanted to go home so bad.

On Monday I was finally able to see the psychologist. I told him about all the issues I had been having lately. I had went through a weird breakup, stopped dancing abruptly, started working at Dolce Restaurant making no money, my house was being foreclosed on because I couldn’t afford the payment with no money coming in, and I am sure we talked about many other things as well. These were just the major ones I could think of without going back through my journals.

He said I had suffered a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t crazy. I was just really sad and that is ok for me to be sad. I had every right to have the feelings that I had. He said any normal person would have felt the same way. That made me feel a little better.

When I told him more about my childhood and talked about how long I had been sad, he said that I have probably been clinically depressed since I was a child. I went through a lot of trauma growing up and remember being sad a lot and feeling like I didn’t want to be here anymore.

In my teens I don’t remember too many times where I was happy. I credit sports with keeping me alive through high school. I went to four different high schools so you can imagine how difficult it was to adjust each time. I became a cutter at some point. I would slit my wrists enough to feel the pain and remind myself that I was still alive. Sometimes I just felt numb and needed to feel something.

It’s a good thing that I didn’t cut deep enough to leave too many scars because at one point I had carved “Whore” on my left arm. Today I have tattoos placed above these scares; one is a heart and the other a semicolon. The heart is there to remind me to love myself and the semicolon is there to say that my story continues.

After I met with the psychologist he signed the papers for me to return home. I was supposed to go to therapy, but the therapist I use to use wasn’t helping me. I took it upon myself to keep working on me and pray that I would find the answer to curing this disease.

And that’s exactly what I did. I opened to receive guidance and things started opening up to me. I’ll continue with what I did to overcome depression in a future blog. I wrote this today to share a little bit about myself that most people don’t know. I also want to say that people around me knew I was depressed. This was a normal thing for me. No one was really shocked that I tried to kill myself. I mean they all thought I was crazy since high school.

So seeing all these posts on social media saying, “speak up, ask for help, and blah blah” can shove that up their asses. Who’s gonna pay for the psychiatrist? Who’s gonna pay for the pills? Who’s gonna wanna listen to someone complain about the same shit, over and over again? That’s what I thought. Don’t act like you know what it is like or try and tell others how they should handle their depression if you yourself have never had it.

I am not gonna tell you that what I did to overcome this was easy. I am not here to sell you on a dream. When I help people I do so by sharing my experiences. There is no one-way of “getting over” depression. Everyone is different, but I am here to give you hope that you too can overcome the voices in your head.

Lots of Love,